I love this place!

My Architecture babies want to draw these buildings!
"I wanna draw, Mr. Hardage!"
OK. Put shingles on your roof.
"What're shingles?"

" . . . uh . . ." And I launch into how the cedar loggers on the Pacific Northwest coast cut the trees into cants that are cut into standard lengths, then quartered, then independent shingle/shake makers cut shakes with a mallet and froe and either leave them as shakes or resaw them into shingles. And they look at me like calves at a butcher.

So we go outside by the tennis courts, and I show them (asphalt)(for you aggies . . . that is not a birth defect) shingles on a roof across the alley, and I wax prosodic about light and shadow lines on the asphalt shingles, how they're supposed to look like wood shingles . . . and they look at me.

Then I tell them about the brick, how you can see by the intensity of the shadows that the mortar joints are raked with a square tool. I show them how the mortar in the school's walls are raked with a round tool, and you don't have the play of the light there . . .

Mooooo.

Damn!

So I ask an Assistant Principal "Can I take my babies alley crawling tomorrow - there're only a dozen of them - to look at what they're supposed to be drawing?"

"Ask the Principal."

"Oh, Captain, my Captain . . ."

"YES."

That was all. Just, "yes." No paperwork. Just, "yes."

So I went and told the SRO we'd be out in the world, and he's cool with keeping the good citizens calm about my mob of banditos prowling their streets point at their residences; he's even calling Dispatch ahead of time.

Gawd! I love this place.

Pax, y'all.

Back in the Saddle!

I have found a new route! It's 1.3 miles longer than shooting straight down Josey Lane, but I didn't get honked at once, cut off, or sworn at all morning!

Huzzah. Now I have to see how it works going home.

I'm like the ant and the rubber tree plant. I have high hopes.
High apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes.


Pax, y'all.

More Joys of Quiddler

Check this link!

http://www.quiddler.com/quiddler/puzzle_frame.htm

Oh frabjous day!

It only puts out one puzzle per day, so you can argue with it all you want, you only get one puzzle. So far I have gotten four points higher that the score once. I was proud of myself till I saw that other people had gotten twenty points higher.

Damn!

So I did it again.

Pax, y'all.

Joys of Quiddler

• Zak and Lauren were in the area over the weekend for one of Zak's bicycle races. We got to see them for a good part of Monday afternoon and evening. We fell into a couple of rounds of Quiddler, naturally. Doesn't everybody.
  
  At the beginning of the second round, Zak piped up with this great idea, wherein the co-conspirators at the table agreed. (Kathryn was teaching a student.) Here's how it shakes out.
  
  Zak, Lauren, Austin, and Dad have to write a short story using each and every one of the words on this list, which were those arrived at in a single round of Quiddler played 22 September 2008. The stories must be completed not later than 6PM, Carrollton time, Monday, 29 September 2008. The stories will be submitted to the family to be judged for "literary merit." Hah! Your ballot will count as
• most excellent – 4 points
• merely excellent - 3 points
• damned good - 2 points
• hell; I could’ve written that - 1 point
  
  Points (4,3,2,1) will be awarded as well for shortest story (mercy, indeed) as well.
  
  The winner has bragging rights --- this time. Till the next game.
• bah
• ale
• this
• pile
• clew
• dud
• torn
• them
• to
• fid
• sox
• the phrase "pile of sock" (don't even ask)
• bier
• lax
• tin
• cuter
• on
• quark
• ghost
• weiner
• ire
• agave
• om
• clingy
• jug
• bold
• hind
• yid
• rib
• is
• queer
• fey
• pew
• then
• arse
• range
• zoea
• they
• doves
• clank
• quart
• mum
• uv (we allowed this one)
• gripe
• unity
• beard
• lathe
• gut
• nicotine
• oh
• if
• jingled
  
  The stories will be posted on the Patriarch’s blog: http://www.moondogdelight.blogspot.com/.
  
  Vote Early; Vote Often. (Only once counts.)
  
  If you want to write your own - you may, of course. All entries must be emailed to the (Senior) Alpha Male of the family in time to be posted. I will put them out simply as numbered pieces - nobody will know for certain-sure who wrote which till the balloting is over.
  
  Please get your ballot in by Monday, 6 October, for tallying.
  
  Pax, y'all.

Another Haiku Site!

Look at this one . . .
What a treat!

http://www.beerhaikudaily.com/

Pax, y'all

The sublime and the ridiculous

Website Kelli found.
Emailed as a shining gift . . .
Treasure from the East.

http://haikugolfer.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/denmark/

Pax, y'all.

Cookies!

When paychecks were on paper the Principal of this campus used to have cookies in the office on paydays -- I guess it sweetened the deal. Now paychecks are electronic.

This school still has cookies in the office on paydays.

Loads of cookies. No Cookie Police counting how many you snitch.

Homemade.

Still warm.

Some of them are still sticking together!

OMG! it's classy.

Pax, y'all

Alternatives

I really want to ride my bike to work. That is important to me on several levels. So, last night Kathryn and I saddled up the truck and noodled around backstreets to/from school.

There is a high, mostly level route on the east side of Josey that is 4.2 miles door-to-door. There is a low, hilly, long pull route on the west side of Josey that is 4.something miles (I didn't pursue this one).

I drove the eastern route in the truck this morning to school, watching the traffic with a more educated eye. Mucha mas calma, gracias a dios. (Are the adjectives right, Holmie?) It took twenty peaceful minutes on four wheels; therefore, dividing the wheels by two multiplies the time by a factor of 1.5 - rule of thumb - to estimate time to bike it.

It will be infinitely more satisfying to arrive at school able to walk, rather than being wheeled in on a gurney.

It's 62 degrees Fahrenheit outside this morning.

Pax, y'all.

Working in a Museum . . .

I know my teaching buds out there will appreciate this . . .

I am still - four weeks into the school year - shoveling out the flotsam of earlier teachers in this CADD labb (It giggles me much to double the "b" in "labb").

I learned from my neighbors that the reason my teacher computer workstation is where it is is because the last guy to have the labb originally had it on the drafting board at the front of the classroom. He just kept piling papers up, and he kept moving the computer to the top of the pile. When it became too unstable, he cadged another desk and moved the computer there. Today I finally got to the surface - uh, the original surface of that drawing board. I felt like Lord Carnarvon when, opening Tutankhamon's tomb, who said . . . "I see things . . . wonderful things."

There, taped to the working surface of the board, preserved for the ages in vinyl sheet protectors, was a complete six period set of seating charts for school year 2003-2004. God, I love this place.

In cabinets and lockers and drawers at the back of the room (the west wall --- of the Temple?? ---) I have unearthed drafting tools from an earlier age. I'm planning to box these up and see if anyone in the Third World can use the donation. These are in semi-pristine condition; it's just that no office around this town uses them any more. Everyone's gone electronic. Back to Lord Carnarvon . . .

I have found hand-rendered and -lettered drawings of machine parts that should be framed and mounted on walls for public display. Oh! the humanity! These are, honestly, artwork -- from the late eighties, early nineties. They're too big to scan, and, were I do do so, it's impossible to appreciate them at monitor-scale.

Pax, y'all.

OK; You Scared Me

I got up this morning and realized I don't intend to ride my bicycle to school in the mornings any more. It's not scary. It's terrifying.

People honk at me because I'm in their way.
They honk at me from the next lane so I won't suddenly swerve in front of them.
They honk at me to let me know they see me or to give me an attaboy.

People try to squeeze past me without getting out of their lane . . . even when there's no traffice in the next lane.
People cut in front of me when they pass - I guess to let me know I shouldn't be taking up road space.

As scary as it is on the street, the sidewalk is worse . . .
g the little loopies where the walk meanders around utility poles . . .
g the branches of trees down at eye level . . .
g the ledges where the subsoil has heaved the sidewalk up four inches . . .
g the guy wires that stay the utility poles where they anchor through the sidewalk . . .
g where the sidewalk goes away altogether for shopping center landscaping, forcing me into the roadway when the motorist isn't expecting me . . .
gthe 90-degree bends in the sidewalk that pedestrians have no problem with . . .

I'm too young and pretty to become a traffic statistic. I don't get to contribute to reducing my carbon footprint this way. I don't get to reduce my country's dependence on foreign petroleum.

I wonder how long it takes to walk the three miles?

For now, I'll just burn the oil, I guess.

But I am going to petition the City Council for a bike lane.

Pax